A Bad Meeting
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Sequel to 'The Thoughtlessness of Vikings,' Hiccup and Toothless have left Berk after dealing with the Red Death. As they are about to leave the Archipelago, they meet another dragon rider...and Hiccup meets someone he's long since thought was dead. Valka is still alive, but Hiccup is not happy.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Christmas.

I don't own How to Train Your Dragon, but I'd hoped to get this and The Dragon Conqueror done for a Christmas update. I barely made it, so I hope you enjoy this.

* * *

A Bad Meeting.

Hiccup shivered again as the cold air washed over him and he desperately pulled his thick, warm cloak around him even more. But he knew it was hopeless since the cloak would either keep slipping as he moved on Toothless' back or he would absently push some of it aside to maintain control of the Night Fury as he flew through the air as he travelled north through the archipelago.

The ice was fairly thick in this region and there were fewer tribes even here, barring one or two who had somehow managed to adapt to the endless bitter cold.

_Rather them than me. I've been through horrible winters, but here there seems to be a perpetual winter, _Hiccup thought to himself as another shiver went through his body. _Still, it looks like these people, judging from the size of their Kill Rings seemed to have side-stepped the War, or they had come from another island and decided to just go neutral when they'd been battered down too much by the raids. _

Another shiver went through Hiccup and he wrapped the cloak around himself even more. He was starting to really regret coming this far north otherwise he wouldn't be so cold, but the explorer in him which had been kindled and blew into a flame from the day he had seen the possibilities of flying a dragon had insisted he came here, not just to discover what was out here so he could add it to the maps and journals he was compiling, but for the sense of adventure he had been looking for for so long.

Hiccup snorted a little, although he regretted it very quickly since another cold chill washed through him and he hugged himself even more since the air made his teeth chatter. There was no way he was going to find anywhere warm enough for him to write a single rune, never mind draw the outline of the lands around here.

In any case, he was close to finally leaving the Barbaric Archipelago behind after he had spent the past three years travelling across it in different directions. Hiccup estimated he would only be around for another few months, and then he would leave for new lands far from here. Hiccup had seen some amazing things, like that time he had stumbled by accident on that treasure left behind by that chief of Berk who had been like him, a hiccup. He hadn't been looking for it. He had just been travelling the archipelago to discover what was out there.

Or that time he had discovered one of the nesting islands the dragons flocked to periodically to birth their young. That had been amazing for the young dragon rider. The dragons had been too busy with what they were doing in order to be worried about him, although Hiccup had little doubt in his mind if the dragons sensed he was a threat, he would have been torn to pieces and even Toothless wouldn't have stood a chance against those odds.

But there had been bad times.

The ending of the Viking-Dragon war…Hiccup truly was uncertain what he had been expecting, he hadn't been thinking really about that. He should have known other Vikings, whether they were insane lunatics like Dagur or power-mad tyrants like Alvin would hear the rumours, the stories, about what he had managed to do with Toothless and ended the war and they had plans to use his knowledge to train dragons for their own ends.

Hiccup had spent the last three years since his first run-ins with both Dagur and Alvin staying as far from Outcast and Berserker settlements, but he had needed to visit various towns and trading places where he could get maps of the outer areas of the Archipelago.

"Oh, come on, bud," Hiccup shivered again as another blast of cold air washed through him. "Let's go up through the clouds; hopefully the sun will be out so we can get a bit of heat for a bit, and then we can continue."

Toothless warbled and Hiccup got the feeling the dragon would have been more than happy if they flew away from here, and Hiccup wouldn't say he blamed the Night Fury. The dragon flew above the thick clouds and Hiccup sighed in relief when he felt some warmth on his face.

"Odin, that's better," Hiccup whispered as he held his head up and let the warmer if still cool air wash over him and he settled down on the Night Fury's back to fly him through the air. The peace was wonderful, but like all good things it never really lasted.

Hiccup went still when he heard Toothless starting to growl, and he instantly became alert to the danger. He gasped when he saw something dark moving through the clouds, parting the wispy grey-white cloud like a shark fin parting water.

_What in Thor's name is that? _Hiccup thought, but his eyes went wide in shock when something rose gracefully from the cloud, rising higher until it towered over Hiccup and Toothless.

_No, _he realised in shock, _not something, but some_one.

They were dressed in a long dark cloak which made telling the gender virtually impossible, but the face was covered with a white-painted mask with horns circling the face. The figure was carrying a staff of some kind, but as he studied it closely, Hiccup saw a part of it was curved and curled inwards.

The figure silently studied Hiccup, and the young dragon rider did likewise before the figure submerged beneath the cloud and was gone.

"Be careful, Toothless," he whispered while he looked around for any sign of the figure, or the dragon they were riding since it was obvious even though he hadn't seen any sign of a dragon when the figure had appeared because how else would they have come up from below like that?

"No sudden moves," Hiccup went on while he was already coming up with a plan on what he was going to do next, but he didn't have any time to put it into place because the clouds suddenly exploded from around them, and Toothless was nearly sent flying but if it wasn't for the duo's control and quick thinking they would never have righted themselves. Once the pair had righted themselves, Hiccup gaped in surprise when he caught sight of a huge four-winged dragon circling back overhead

"A Stormcutter?" Hiccup whispered to himself as he identified the dragon species Stoick the Vast hated above all else since one took his mother away from Berk all those years ago. Hiccup held onto Toothless as the Night Fury, spooked out of his mind by the sudden appearance of the enormous dragon, flew really close in front of him, blocking their way.

Hiccup threw aside all of his plans for now while he opened his mouth, hoping whoever this other rider was, they would listen to him.

"WE MEAN YOU NO HARM!" he called, wondering if the other rider would even understand him but he decided to give it a shot. "WE ARE LEAVING THE ARCHIPELAGO. CAN YOU PLEASE LET US LEAVE?"

No answer.

And no reaction from the figure. Although, not a physical one, at any rate, it was still disheartening.

Hiccup wasn't sure how the figure had reacted underneath the mask, but he decided he didn't really care. If this….person wanted to play games they could do it with someone who wanted to play. But what really interested him the most was there was someone else in the archipelago who rode a dragon as well. Were they the only ones who could? Were there others?

Toothless and the Stormcutter both entered into a staring/growling contest, and the force of their beating wings churned the clouds around them. Hiccup noticed Toothless turning his head, eyes widening in alarm, but before the rider could do anything about it, he felt a pair of strong dragon paws grip him and tear him off of Toothless' back.

The Night Fury screeched with alarm as he was deprived of his rider, and without Hiccup's manipulation of his tail fin, the dragon plummeted down like a shrieking black rock.

"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup wailed in horror as he saw his friend fall into the icy cold sea beneath them.

The sight made Hiccup angrier than ever. He had never been able to forgive himself for what he had taken away from Toothless three years ago, and although he had promised to one day find a way to restore the Night Fury's flight, they'd never really had the time although Hiccup had spent a long time drawing and re-drawing designs which he felt would be the answer to the problem. But seeing the callousness of this mysterious rider who had just snatched him away when a simple and polite "follow me" would have been more than sufficient, infuriated him.

Hiccup lifted his head and glared furiously at the other rider. "YOU STUPID BASTARD!" he screamed, uncaring at this point if he was making the other dragons, including the one who was carrying him, uncomfortable with the sound of his yells. "MY DRAGON CANNOT FLY WITHOUT ME! HE NEEDS ME TO HELP HIM FLY! GODS DAMN YOU! GET HIM OUT OF THAT WATER! HE WILL DROWN!"

No answer.

Hiccup was starting to wonder if this rider was mute, but if they didn't respond to him soon, he was going to kill them. He looked back down at where Toothless had fallen into the ice. He cursed the dragon holding him for flying so quickly, because now he couldn't even see his best friend.

"Oh gods, no," Hiccup begged the gods, hoping they weren't cruel enough to do this. "Please, don't…Not Toothless!"

XXX

Ordinarily Hiccup would have been amazed by the different dragons flying around him, but at this point he was too angry and frightened about what had happened to Toothless to care.

"You have to go back to my dragon! He can't fly on his own!" he shouted at the other rider, but they were still ignoring him as they guided the small flock towards mountains of ice. Hiccup looked around curiously, guessing that these dragons were very close to their home. That made sense. Hiccup had encountered dragon nests in other places, different parts of the archipelago, and he had learnt they could practically live anywhere since their bodies were naturally more robust than a humans. But it never failed to impress him with what they were capable of.

The dragon holding him swooped down underneath a large icy arch to a large open ice plain.

Hiccup gasped in amazement. He had never seen this before. They were heading towards a massive island, he could guess it was, with long green coloured spikes of ice sticking out. The moment he saw it, Hiccup knew only a dragon of enormous size could have breathed the ice to make the nest, only he had never seen anything of this scale.

The dragons flew through an opening in the wall, lit up with green ice as the sunlight shone through it. Hiccup was placed on the ground again as the dragon flew him into a large chamber where there were other dragons around him.

"Hey!" Hiccup called, hoping that now they weren't flying through the air the rider might understand him better. "We have to go back for my dragon. He can't fly without me, he's only got one tail-fin, only I made him a prosthetic!"

The dragons surrounding him hemmed him into a circle. Hiccup kept very still, knowing from experience dragons would only attack if he tried to attack them in turn. He took a few cautious steps back as one particularly large individual dragon came up close in front of him, growing threateningly. Hiccup narrowed his eyes curiously. He couldn't help but wonder if the other rider had set this up as a kind of test, to see if he would attack the dragon or do something else. Hiccup slowly reached behind him and pulled out a long rust coloured cylinder while at the same time he pulled out a black ball from his belt and slotted it into the cylinder. He pressed a control on the cylinder and twirled himself around, smelling the familiar stench of Zippleback gas around him before he ignited it with a spark created from Nightmare saliva. The dragons reared back in surprise as their noses detected the two familiar scents, and they became more appeased.

Hiccup breathed out a slow sigh of relief, delighted it had worked. It hadn't been difficult to get hold of the two substances he'd needed in order to make his skills with dragon taming much easier in the long run; it got boring to offer fish to the dragons, but it became more taxing when he had been trying to do it so frequently. With the two products of two of the most common breeds, Hiccup's task was much easier and since he came away smelling like a dragon, life was much easier.

Sure, the device he'd built for the task wasn't quite completed and perfected yet, but there would be time for that later since it was good for its current purpose and he was still experimenting.

_Hmm, there goes two more cartridges of Zippleback gas and Nightmare saliva, but I can stock up on them at some point before I leave, I guess, _he thought to himself.

Hiccup reached forward to stroke the head of one of the dragons, hoping if he made friends with just one of them, the others would fall into line accordingly, but before he could even get close enough he spotted something out of the corner of his eye and he turned.

There they were. The other dragon rider, still masked and still holding onto the staff, and also a shield that he had been too preoccupied to notice. The shield wasn't anything to write home about; it was disc-shaped and bright white paint was splattered on it. The other rider was walking towards him.

Hiccup abandoned the attempt to make friends with one of the dragons. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Can you even speak?"

The figure didn't reply again. Hiccup growled under his breath in frustration, but as he did he noticed something about the way this figure was moving. They weren't moving in a human manner, but there was something almost….dragon-like about the way they moved.

The figure twirled the staff around and a noise came from it. Hiccup tensed as the dragons reacted…only for a large black shape to rise up and land on the ground. Hiccup's eyes widened as he saw the shape was actually two dragons, and one of them was-

"TOOTHLESS! OH, I AM SO GLAD YOU'RE OKAY!" Hiccup cried in delight, rushing to hug his dragon, wincing as the cold water dripped into his hair, but the happy Night Fury pushed him aside.

The figure did something with their staff again - Hiccup had no idea what the different sounds meant, but they clearly meant something to the dragons here - and the dragons opened their mouths, igniting the gases in them, bathing the chamber with warm orange light.

The figure started to approach both Hiccup and Toothless.

The Night Fury didn't like that, not that Hiccup could blame him, and the dragon crouched down into a defence stance, growling warningly at the other rider, who crouched down and started moving towards them. Hiccup frowned a little, wondering just how long this character had been here with the dragons since they moved much like the dragons who lived here.

The figure did something with their hands in front of the growling Toothless - Hiccup would never understand how they managed to do that - and the Night Fury rolled over on his back and seemed to go to sleep, almost as if he had been scratched in his sweet spots.

_What? How did _they _do that?_

But this was not the time to ask questions since with Toothless down he was on his own. Hiccup tensed up and pulled back reflexively as the rider approached him, reaching for his face. To his surprise, the figure gasped and pulled away.

"Hiccup?"


	2. Chapter 2

A Bad Meeting.

Hiccup was startled. He had been taken by surprise by how quickly and easily this dragon rider managed to effortlessly deal with Toothless right in front of him, and his mind had been racing while he had tried hard to figure out what he could do - he had become marginally better at self-defence, courtesy of Toothless and other dragons pitching in to help him develop his strength, but he had nothing to counter the staff this other rider was using.

Only he didn't need to.

The other rider had scuttled back after examining his face, calling him by name. The other rider was a she.

_It's nice to know something about her, _he thought to himself dryly. _Although she knows something about me…_

She knew him by name, reacting to something about his chin. But what? He didn't have anything on his chin noteworthy, at least nothing in his mind.

But clearly that was not the case.

"Er…," Hiccup whispered, instantly cursing his inability to speak confidently at times.

The woman fumbled with her mask and pulled it off, gaping at him. Hiccup stared back. The woman was thin-faced with long chestnut coloured hair with what looked like strands of silver but in this light, it was virtually impossible to tell. It was also impossible for him to tell the colour of the woman's eyes, although they appeared to be green.

Much like his own.

"C-could it be?" the woman asked tentatively, stepping slowly towards him. "After all these years? How is this possible?"

Hiccup narrowed his eyes at her. _Do I know you? _was on the tip of his tongue, but he shook his head. "Who are you? If you think this act is gonna change the fact you knocked me and my dragon out of the air is gonna change anything…it won't."

The woman looked shocked by what he had said, even hurt. Hiccup couldn't bring himself to care; he had been scared to death when he had thought Toothless had been snatched away from him. No, torn from him.

In any case, the last three years had hardened him and made him lose some of his previous personality. While he was still the same person, a short life-time's worth of pain, anger, and frustration had washed that away.

"I…I am sorry, Hiccup," the woman stuttered, but Hiccup shook his head at her while he tried hard to not lose his temper.

"Just…who are you?" he went on, staring her down. "You come out of nowhere, you attack me and my dragon, and you're going all weird, thinking you know me. Please stop wasting my time; my dragon and I are leaving the archipelago, and we were just having a look around when you came out of nowhere."

The woman just gaped in surprise at him. "You're leaving?" She shook her head. "But what about Berk? You're the heir…"

"No, I am not!" Hiccup spat, anger and loathing for the island filling his soul. He shook his head, not particularly interested in getting into a lengthy account of his time on Berk, although he was curious about this woman's ignorance of what had happened after the war. "My former father, Stoick the Vast - dunno if you know him and I don't really care - used me as an alternative to launch those hunts for the dragon nest. He would hear the pathetic excuses, and then he would say those who stayed would look after me, so when the dragons eventually picked them off, they would have someone to blame. After that, I saw I didn't have any place on Berk, or in the Hairy Hooligan tribe."

"F-former father?" A strange reaction came over the woman. She slowly lowered herself to her knees, gazing at Hiccup in surprise, anger, and horror. "He…he did that?" she practically squeaked. "Stoick….your father…did that?"

"He's not my father anymore," Hiccup's tone was matter of fact as he remembered how the last time he had been on the ground with his father had gone, but as he spoke he watched the woman carefully, noticing how ashen and horrified she was. "He might have called me 'son' after I defeated the Queen Dragon, ending three centuries of war, but I don't see him as a father. He never was."

The woman's reaction to that surprised Hiccup. She practically fell onto her knees, sobbing. Hiccup watched her astonished for a moment. "Why do you care so much?"

The woman looked up at him. Hiccup was taken by surprise by the look of pain her eyes. "You-you really don't know, do you?"

Hiccup sighed. He wasn't interested in playing these games anymore. "No, I don't," he answered, looking down, thankful Toothless had revived by himself and was now looking around to see what was going on. "And you know something? I'm not playing these games anymore. We're going."

The woman looked at him in surprise, taken aback by his sheer apathy in Hiccup's tone, but he didn't care. What did she expect? She had been playing games with him, and he was tired of it. "Wait! Please, don't go, please Hiccup!" she held out her hand.

Hiccup sighed again and leaned on his dragon to give him spiritual patience. Toothless gave it, by warbling at him. Hiccup patted the Night Fury on the neck softly, thanking him for that. "Who are you?" he turned around. "And stop messing me around this time, because I think I have shown great patience so far, but I now I am starting to lose my temper. I want to leave right now, get back to travelling. I want the truth!"

The woman reared back as the last word came out as a shout. The dragons looked just as startled by the shout, but otherwise, they looked mellow.

"You wouldn't remember me, Hiccup," she said quietly. "I….I was lost when you were just a baby…..but a mother never forgets."

Hiccup gasped in shock, stepping back right into the worried Toothless. He hadn't expected this, he hadn't imagined he would one day find his mother. Ever since the day where so many home truths - his standing in the tribe, the way his father viewed him, and how the truth about dragons came out and cracked the stone of Viking beliefs.

But despite that…

Sometimes, in the back of Hiccup's mind, he had wondered just what had happened on the night his mother had been believed to have died. He hadn't bothered going back to the massive labyrinth the Queen and the dragons she had enslaved had taken as their home; there was no doubt in his mind the Queen wouldn't have had the odd human once or twice over the three centuries.

And truthfully he hadn't wanted to find out if his mother's remains were there or not. But there was no denying it. Now he had a clear view of the woman, he could see there was a resemblance between the pair of them.

If it wasn't due to the age difference, they could have been twins. Hiccup could tell if he had been born female they would have resembled each other a lot more.

Hiccup didn't know what to feel, except that he hadn't seen or heard from this woman in eighteen years. Hiccup closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down, but it was hard. The emotions he was feeling were boiling within his mind, and he was having trouble focusing on them. He reopened them again, finding himself looking straight into his mother's eyes.

"You are my mother?" Hiccup said.

"Yes," Valka smiled.

"And you've been here, all this time? Doing what? Why didn't you come back?" Hiccup demanded.

Valka looked startled by the questions. "Yes. I have been here the whole time. But, Hiccup - I wanted to come back. I wanted to see you grow, but I felt you would have been better off without me in your life," she said, shoving each word out of her mouth as if each of them was hard for her to speak, never mind believe.

"Oh, come on, what do you mean by that?" Hiccup said. "You wanted to see me grow, but you felt you'd be better off without me? What kind of meaningless crap is that?"

"Hiccup-!"

"No," Hiccup snapped. "I was the tribe runt. Do you know what it's like working for years and years trying to be one of _them," _he spat out the word as he described the Hairy Hooligan tribe with nothing but disgust in his voice, but the sheer venom of his words brought Valka's back up even though he had already made it clear Hiccup and Stoick had an awful relationship, "only for it to blow up in your face? I spent years trying to kill dragons, to gain respect, and when I finally do it, when I finally bring a dragon down, I can't kill him."

"Him, you mean your Night Fury?"

Toothless warbled and Hiccup hugged the dragon closely, not even wanting to look at the woman. "Yes."

"Yes. I shot him down," he said, "but when I looked into his eyes…I saw myself. I saw what I had done, and I felt sick just looking into Toothless' eyes and seeing the terror, the anticipation of his own death in his eyes. So I let him go. I cut him loose, created a prosthetic tail-fin, eventually we ended the war."

Valka's eyes widened. "How did you do that?" she whispered.

"Ironically, I had to kill the Queen who was using the dragons as slaves to capture its food. I don't regret that decision, especially since I saw it killing other dragons which either didn't feed it or got in its way," Hiccup replied quietly.

XXX

As he sat down on a rock overlooking the enormous ice-enclosed dome of the Bewilderbeast's nest, smiling when he saw how the baby dragons flew over and around Toothless, Hiccup wondered what he was going to do about his mother.

For years Hiccup had wanted to know more about her, but since Stoick had practically banned all word of the woman it was hard for him to get anything although Gothi and Gobber had given him some hints over the years, and despite Stoick's constant put-downs by using Valka in a similar way to how Hiccup himself had been used to recruit so many warriors to those damn hunts, Hiccup had wondered how his mother would have felt in those situations. In the end, he'd decided he didn't want to know since it wouldn't change a thing.

But finding out she was alive…

Hiccup had wondered, quite a bit in fact whenever he turned his mind to her over the last few years, what had happened to Valka since he knew dragons were nothing that people thought.

And yet, he was still angry with her.

He had noticed she hadn't yet given him a straight answer to his questions about why she had stayed clear of Berk. To say it frustrated him greatly was an understatement since he felt he had the right to know why. His mind was already awash with the memories he'd lived with for years since the day he'd been termed Hiccup the Useless, and how his mother had gotten herself deliberately snatched by dragons because she couldn't bear him. They were joined by the other sick things people had said to him over the years.

"It was because I was afraid that if I went to Berk, I would see you as a younger version of Stoick, massive in size, wielding a hammer or a spear, proudly killing one dragon after another."

Hiccup looked up startled. "Wha-what?" he stumbled.

Valka chuckled, although her eyes held no humour in them. She hesitantly walked over and sat down next to Hiccup. "Whenever someone on Berk looked at me and Stoick….they would wonder how two people with completely different mindsets could marry and have a baby. Stoick was already seen as the pride of Berk, the epitome of a Viking, with hundreds of kills under his sizeable belt. Me? I refused to kill dragons. I wanted to make peace with them," her eyes glazed as she recalled the various raids where she got in the way of the various warriors, allowing dragons to escape or take off food, leaving her scorned. She remembered the arguments she'd had with Stoick, how he had never listened to her, and shouted back the dragons were evil demons that needed to be wiped out.

Valka shook her head. "My theories that dragons were actually intelligent beings, more sensitive than people thought, were confirmed the night I was taken. I found a dragon, my Cloudjumper," she smiled at the enormous owl-faced dragon Hiccup had already met, "playing with you."

"What?" Hiccup gaped.

He had known dragons could be playful and kind, as long as they weren't feeling threatened, but he had never imagined a dragon of such size playing with him. At the same time, he considered the scale of what he'd been told just now. If only he had known this little tidbit, this encounter of playing with a fully grown adult dragon who was capable of tearing his tiny body to pieces but hadn't, as many Vikings would have expected, then Hiccup knew his whole life would have changed completely.

With that different view, he knew he would never have bothered trying to kill dragons. Sure, it might have caused him more trouble in the village, but it would have been better…

No. Hiccup knew it was impossible to change the past, and besides that, if he hadn't tried so hard, he would never have met Toothless. And he couldn't have had that. Toothless was the best thing that had ever happened to him, even dwarfing those days he'd been Gobber's apprentice.

"I don't know why he did it, but when he noticed me, he scratched you on the chin, leaving you a noticeable scar but he didn't attack me. When I stared into his eyes, I saw everything I had suspected was true. Dragons were intelligent, caring beings. And then it went wrong when your father - when Stoick, burst it and Cloudjumper snatched me," Valka looked down as she remembered that night.

But she looked up solemnly. "If you want to leave, I don't mind. I'll understand. But please…give me a chance to make it up to you," Valka stood up and walked away leaving Hiccup behind in surprise, stunned she would say that. He stood up and walked off in the opposite direction.


	3. Chapter 3

I am sorry for the long wait, but I hope you enjoy this concluding chapter. I also hope you are okay with the Coronavirus mess going on.

As usual, I don't own How to Train Your Dragon. Please enjoy.

* * *

A Bad Meeting.

As she walked away from her son, Valka felt nothing but regret, not only for the manner she had used on Hiccup but also the fact she had left her baby boy alone for so long.

Granted, she had to admit she had made the mistake of making an assumption which had proven to be wrong, and it had made her appear foolish since she had never mustered the effort to see for herself who her son took after the most, her or Stoick.

Finding out her child had been treated so badly, it had ignited the anger only a mother could feel. But Valka knew she didn't deserve to be called a mother, especially since she had only been one to the dragons who had needed her and not the boy she had given birth to.

No.

Valka couldn't blame Hiccup for being unhappy to see her, and to discover that instead of coming back to Berk and giving him what he had needed the most, which was a parent who was willing to give him some effort since Stoick, being the thickheaded Viking he had always been, was more interested in being the father of the tribe rather than take care of Hiccup, she had been more interested in believing her own assumptions which had started out much more innocently so long ago. But she found his mood swings a bit too much, even if she could understand them.

_Tribe RUNT! What in the name of Thor and Odin had she DONE?!_

Vikings were a single-minded people. If one of their own was different, they were usually outcasted, treated badly compared to the others, and while Valka had never encountered someone like that during her own childhood on Berk, she knew perfectly well what would have happened to that runt in the long term. The very thought of her son being in that position…

Thor, it was no wonder Hiccup was bitter, and not only towards the Hairy Hooligans and to his own father, but Valka wished he would give her a chance even if she understood the reasons for being bitter towards her in turn. Oh, Valka knew Hiccup was angrier towards the tribe more than he was her, but she hoped he would get over his anger towards her and find it within himself to forgive her. He wouldn't forget from what she had worked out from his mood, but he might - she hoped - forgive her in time.

Still, she was already killing herself for what she had failed to do for her own son. Valka made her way back to the part of the Bewilderbeast's nest she had taken for herself, followed closely by Cloudjumper. She felt her dragon nuzzle her gently when he sensed her melancholic mood. She turned and smiled sadly at Cloudjumper, petting him on the snout and feeling the delicate scales on his face.

"I've blown it, haven't I, old friend?" Valka whispered sadly as she thought about the years she had stayed far from Hiccup and hadn't been there to wipe away the tears on his face while Stoick ignored his sorrow.

Cloudjumper crooned sadly, but he did his best to make her feel better by pressing his face close to her own and nuzzling her. Valka chuckled, but it was a sad chuckle as she was face to face with her own regrets.

In truth, she had done her best not to think of her son too much since she had believed he had taken more after Stoick than her and it had only made her stay away from him even easier. She was also unsurprised by his decision to leave and explore beyond the archipelago; now that he wasn't bound by the rules and the duties of the Vikings, Hiccup would likely have wanted to travel, to journey to the lands beyond that only the hardiest traveller ventured to if they were well supplied for the long journeys out.

Valka had done the same, and she grinned in remembrance as she remembered those years she'd spent away from the nest when she hadn't been fighting against Drago. She knew only too well the temptation she'd had to travel widely, to see the world the way the dragons did, and see if there was more to the world than the archipelago. Valka wasn't surprised in the least Hiccup had wanted to leave, he struck her as the curious type. A kindred spirit if ever there was one.

Valka wondered how much Hiccup had seen, but her son was too guarded and upset to really tell her anything about what he had done although she had been rendered horrified and speechless when she had discovered Hiccup had ended the war, and she dreaded to think about the battle she knew he must have gone through in order to win.

Valka was so wrapped up in her thoughts she didn't notice Toothless flying Hiccup silently inside, although Cloudjumper did. The elder dragon grunted for a moment before he took in the body language of the youngling dragon, and the child of his rider. Cloudjumper had lived for a very long time, and since he had managed to avoid the worst of the call of the Queen which he had heard much like every other dragon nearest to that particular nest, since he had focused on the presence of the King of the nest he lived in, and he could see that his rider's youngling had calmed down and had used the time to think.

A large part of Cloudjumper blamed himself for the conflict between Valka and Hiccup since he'd had the power to take her back to the island he had snatched her from. Over the years, Cloudjumper didn't know when Valka had somehow convinced herself her child would be just like all the Vikings in the village. Cloudjumper had never been convinced of that since he had personally played with the child, and he could see, even from that age, the child wasn't the type of person to kill dragons. Oh, Cloudjumper was aware he could be wrong, especially since the boy at the time had been young, and unlike many of the other Viking children, he hadn't grown up with that insane instinct to kill dragons without a thought in his mind, no matter what he had talked himself into.

While he had questioned Valka's logic, Cloudjumper had not taken action when he could have done because he had sensed she didn't want to return, and over the years he had occasionally asked himself if he could have done more. It was too late now, but Cloudjumper knew the presence of her son had shaken Valka to the core. He subtly moved back, letting the younglings come deeper inside.

Hiccup, meanwhile, was watching his mother although he was more than aware of the presence of the large dragon. If there was one thing he loved about his life as a nomad, it was the prospect of encountering dragons he had heard of but had never seen before thanks to his ground-bound life on Berk.

But this Stormcutter….

Hiccup could tell thanks to his body language the large dragon was regretting not taking Valka anywhere near Berk.

He let out a soft breath. "Are you alright?" Hiccup asked, watching as his mother jumped and clutched her chest. He hadn't realised she had been so lost in thought.

Although she was annoyed he had sneaked up on her like that, Valka did her best to smile at her son. "Oh, I was just thinking…," she said.

"Oh, what about?" Hiccup asked, knowing that she had been thinking about him. She had been curious, upset, and hurt by what he had said and done, and while he felt somewhat ashamed of himself for throwing what was in his mind a tantrum, he needed her to see she had been wrong about him.

"About you, Hiccup," Valka whispered, looking down at her hands. "I was never there for you-."

"No, you weren't," Hiccup interrupted, not even trying to sugarcoat his words. "But at the same time….," he sighed and looked down at his hands. "I've had time to think, and while I can't be absolutely sure about what might have happened if you had come back, or if you had never been taken, I do know this; If you hadn't been there, I would likely never have listened to what you'd been trying to tell the Berkians for years about dragons. I may have been swallowed up by that stupid, short-sighted Viking philosophy of murder."

Valka went silent as she mulled over what Hiccup had just said. A part of her was pleased indeed that her son had inherited her intelligence instead of his father's. While Valka still loved Stoick, thought about him with affection especially since he had been terribly embarrassed and frightened when he had been so nervous and terrified he had messed up during their wedding, which showed just how seriously he had taken it, she was not blind to his faults.

Stoick believed in the Viking way of thinking. No questions asked, and she knew no matter how hard he tried, Stoick would not be able to think outside of the box, nor would he see what she had seen from the off about the Hairy Hooligans. Stoick and his father were both dedicated to finding the nest, and they had always taken large numbers of Vikings with them on those wasteful voyages which always resulted in a terrible loss of life, and she had no doubt Stoick had been so determined to destroy the nest following Cloudjumper snatching her away in the middle of that terrible raid, he had gone further and press-ganged every able-bodied Viking he could find, including teenagers who weren't properly experienced enough to go on the voyages.

Thor, she only hoped and prayed he hadn't been stupid enough to take newly wedded couples or women who had just become pregnant. If he had then the future of the Hairy Hooligans was in doubt, since with so few of them to keep the tribe going, one day there was a chance the tribe would go extinct.

"Yeah, I hated my childhood. I hated being picked on because I was the smallest, the weakest of my year group," Hiccup went on, and Valka needed to mentally shake her head so she could pay attention to what her son was saying, "But at the same time, I had to accept it. I did this for years, mum. I had no idea my father was taking advantage of my poor reputation in the tribe to send people off to their deaths," Valka stiffened as she heard that, hearing the way Hiccup's voice had darkened for a moment before he resumed his usual tone, but it told Valka a great deal, "but when I found out, I was amazed by just how easily I realised the tribe had no place for me. I couldn't have discovered that for myself if you had been there."

Although she sensed he had no malice in what he'd just said, Valka couldn't help but wince at the reminder. It still rankled and hurt her very much her son had been an outcast, much like she had, although unlike her son she had been capable of lifting weapons and fighting although she preferred a different approach to things.

"I wouldn't have found Toothless," Hiccup patted the Night Fury on the snout, and the dragon snorted affectionately back at him. Valka chuckled when she saw for herself how strong their bond was. "And I wouldn't have ended the war."

Valka became surprised when all of a sudden her son seemed to become sheepish. She wondered what he had to say at this point, and she listened carefully, wondering what he had to say.

"Is that offer still open? I can stay here?" Hiccup asked, sounding almost plaintive as he asked his questions.

Valka gasped. She hadn't expected Hiccup would take her offer/plea seriously, especially once she had listened to his history. Indeed, she had thought he would just fly off on his own rather than wanting to spend any time here with her. "You want to stay…with me?"

"You doubted I wouldn't consider it?"

"No," she said quickly. "It's just I expected you to leave quickly, that's all."

She hadn't meant to say that, especially so bluntly but she hadn't been able to check her words in time.

"Well, let's just say, I had time to think it over," Hiccup said, with a shy lopsided smile on his face. "I was going to travel the world, see what was out there, but I've got plenty of time to do that. In any case, there's so much I can learn here, with you."

Valka's heart almost exploded out of her chest with pleasure at what Hiccup had just said. She leapt to her feet so fast, Hiccup jumped back and Toothless' wings spread out threateningly for a moment before he realised that she meant no harm. Sheepish herself since she knew she could very well have been injured or killed by the Night Fury, Valka gathered her son up and hugged him tightly.

Hiccup hugged her back.


End file.
